One of my facebook buddies posted an article written by some chap regarding theosis. Well, I don't know if I have a problem with it, but I have a few reservations. Let's see what the articles says:
"But theosis equally does not mean simply trying to live a good and moral life so that we please God. It is not another way of just saying holy. It does not mean that we cease to be human, but it equally does not mean the sort of good behaviour we can manage to produce on our own."
Moreover
"We do not ask how much theosis we have experienced, rather we ask how far we have become people of constant prayer, how far we have become holy, how far we have gained control over the passions, how completely we have sacrificed self in the service of God and others.
You can read the rest of the article here:
http://www.stgeorgeministry.com/?p=197
So what is the article trying to say? I personally am having a hard time trying to pinpoint with any measure of accuracy the intent of the author, since it doesn't seem that he is trying to put forth a new idea, but something that's known.
From the first paragraph I pasted above, he seems to say and I'm paraphrasing, "It's not enough to please God, but there is this so much better way that's only known to orthodox Christians, called theosis." I have a problem with that. It's not enough to please God? Our entire life on earth has one aim, which is to please God. Look through the bible, I think that it's quiet clear that this is a central theme.
Why do I think pleasing God is such a more important concept than theosis, as the article describes it? Pleasing God makes everything centre around God. My ego disappears from the equation. God is all in all, if I do everything to please Him. Also the concept of pleasing God seems very innate in all humans. All of us seek to please someone whom we hold at a higher pedestal, whether it's a parent or a mentor or even ourselves. I think the latter is where we run into trouble, since we hold ourselves as our own ultimate hero, basically pride. However, theosis, as the article describes it, seems to give some weight to us. We somehow are important in the equation. We are that moon, as the article describes. Which, in my opinion can be dangerous, because now we are working ourselves in the equation. We are giving ourselves a measure of importance. I would rather leave God to give me glory, rather than seek to clarify this glory for myself.
Now if the Article is trying to say, that we can't please God on our own merit, I can accept that. It's through God's grace and salvation in Jesus Christ that we are able to please God. So we should do everything in that knowledge, whether it's service, prayer, praise and anything else.
In the second paragraph, he seems to contradict himself, by saying that theosis by itself is not measurable, rather you measure it by being constant in prayer, how far you become holy, etc. So then my question is, what's the point of coming up with a new term or a new concept to describe already existing concepts? Why can't we just dedicate our will to become constant in prayers, having control over our passions and putting in effort to serve God and others.
The response might be, "But that's not enough, you have to have unity with God". Well, but we just agreed that you can't have unity with God, except by going through these steps. So it's really a circular argument. In order to have unity with God, you must be constant in prayer, control your passions and serve God and others. Without these you can not have union with God. Plus the church provides the sacraments to solidfy this union.
From where I stand the concept of theosis as described in this article, doesn't provide any useful information that would lead us to a new light. It would've been enough to say, that as Christians, we must seek to please God, by first accepting his grace given to us by the death and resurrection of God the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. After accepting this grace, we ought to live a life worthy of this grace, by leaving our old selves behind and seeking to please God through constant prayers (which can come in many forms, since if we live truly for God, then all our actions in effect become a form of praise to God), controlling our passions, and serving God and others. It seems to me that it is enough to stop there, as anything else would add no new information to the facts that are present.
Finally, I'd like to reflect (as poorly as it might be) on the following:
2 Peter 1 1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
As far as I understand this, is that through the Knowledge of God, who called us to glory and virtue, we are given great promises, that through these promises, when we have overcome the world and its lusts, pretty much at the end of our journey, since as long as we live on this earth we are subject to these lusts and under constant struggle, we might be partakers of his divine nature. How are we going to be partakers of his divine nature? I don't know. Is that something we can understand now? Well at least I can't grasp it. In another place in the scripture it says that we will be like unto Christ. To what extent are we going to be like unto Christ? I don't know. We can understand slightly that we will be like unto him to the extent of his humanity which was "combined" (for a lack of a better term) with his divinity. But I can't claim to even understand what that means. So there seems to be a lot of unknowns here. To me these promises are there to give us hope of the greatness of the life with God, to the end that we might live a virtuous life on earth, pleasing to God. If we start to leave the important duty of living a righteous life, and concentrate on a glory that we dimly see now, I think we err. Moreover, I think it gives us no benefit. So at the end of the day we ought to give everything its proper weight. Yes the promises are important, being partakers of the divine nature is important, but God has given us a clear and practical way of achieving that. We ought to put all our effort into following that way with the hope of the promises given to us. But we shouldn't ignore the practical steps and concentrate on a vague concept that can not be fully understood in our present human condition.